3/28/2011

Obama's inconsistent foreign policy: Libya and Syria

Despite big demonstrations and Syrian police opening fire on protestors, Obama isn't going to intervene in Syria. In Egypt, Obama said that the demonstrations showed that Mubarak had lost the support of the Egyptian people. But Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is viewed as "a reformer" despite firing on his citizens? Do we really want to get into a debate over whether Libya had the worst dictatorship? Does anyone really believe that there aren't lots of countries that are at least as bad? What is next bombing Cuba or North Korea? It will be interesting to see whether Obama can provide more of a logical rationale for why he is at war with some countries and not others.

1 Comments:

Asking for a strong rationale, or even better a written one, before sending US troops into battle is an easily defensible position. But the idea that we can't intervene somewhere because we're not intervening everywhere is simply illogical.

If my neighbor is raping his daughter and I kick in his door to stop him I won't be called a hypocrit because I didn't kick in the drug dealer's door two blocks over...or the corrupt policeman six blocks down.

If Obama is, despite his liberal tendencies, willing to use the US military to prevent a slaughter he should be applauded. To do otherwise is to show a shameful bias.